Van Dyke and Company

TV writer/producer Rick Mittleman has passed away at the age of 84. Mittleman died in a traffic accident on Wednesday (30Jul14) in Los Angeles, according to Deadline.com.
He was best known for his work on TV shows such as The Flintstones, The Dick Van Dyke Show and MacGyver, and earned three Emmy nominations for his work on comedy series The Red Skelton Hour (1963), Arnie (1971) and variety show Van Dyke And Company (1976). In addition, he served as a producer on Arnie and detective show Simon & Simon.
Mittleman also sat on the board of directors for the Writers Guild of America and in 1997, he was honoured with the organisation's Morgan Cox Award for his contributions to the labour union.

Tomorrow has finally arrived, and it has brought with it the trailer for the upcoming Annie remake, starring Quvenzhané Wallis as the titular orphan and a supporting cast that includes Cameron Diaz as Miss Hannigan and Jamie Foxx as the modern-day Daddy Warbucks, Will Stacks. In this version of the classic story, Wallis' Annie lives with her evil foster caretaker (Diaz) and several other over-worked, unappreciated girls in Harlem before she is plucked out of her apartment by the billionaire mogul Stacks, who is running for mayor and looking for an attention-grabbing photo opp. After she moves into his penthouse apartment, the two grow closer and both of them find the family they've been searching for.
Of course, any time a beloved classic is remade or updated, people are bound to be apprehensive. But no matter how you feel about the score getting a vaguely hip-hop remix or Diaz chewing the scenery as the obnoxious Miss Hannigan, Annie fans can take comfort in the fact that the trailer shows the new film featuring an important staple of musical cinema. We are instead referring to the scenes of Wallis and the rest of the cast dancing around the rooftops of New York City, which has long been a feature of films, movies and musicals.
In honor of the new Annie trailer, we've decided to salute Wallis and her castmates for their bravery and and well-executed choreography with a list of ten great rooftop dance sequences from film and television. Although please, don't actually try this home. We really don't want to be responsible for inspiring a wave of severe injuries just for the sake of a light-hearted dance routine. We're including clips, just live vicariously through them.
Empire Records After you've damned the man and saved the Empire, what better way to celebrate than with a rooftop dance party? Joe owns the store now, everyone's forgotten about Lucas stealing the money, Warren has a job, Corey and AJ are officially together, Gina and Deb are finally getting along and Mark... well, he's Mark, so everyone gets to spin around the roof in the glow of the newly-fixed sign. If you're looking for a way to celebrate Rex Manning Day, this is it.
10 Things I Hate About You If we've learned anything from the teen movies of the '90s, it's that a story has never properly ended until someone gives a rooftop performance while the credits roll, and 10 Things I Hate About You wrapped up the love story of Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles by having Letters to Cleo perform a Cheap Trick cover on what appeared to be the tallest castle spire in all the land. And lest you worry that this scene doesn't fit the "dancing" criteria of this list, we'd like to remind you of the two guys in this band whose sole purpose it is to arm-dance behind the lead singer. Don't shatter their dreams.
The Princess and the FrogTeen movies aren't the only ones that like to wrap up a story with some well-lit, rooftop dancing; Disney has fallen victim to the same urge, and The Princess and the Frog ends with Tiana and Naveen dancing a giddy Charleston in the skyline over New Orleans at sunset. You know how people say that Disney films have given them unrealistic expectations about love and life? This scene is one of the reasons why.
West Side Story Yes, the main character of this film is technically sweet, innocent Maria, but everyone knows the real star was Anita, who was played to perfection by Rita Moreno. The scene that established her dominance over the movie musical genre is the rooftop-set dance off "America." She gets all the best lines, all the best dance moves, and once she starts sassing the boys and twirling her skirt, it's impossible to care about Tony and Maria's sappy romance anymore. If you watch carefully, you can pinpoint the exact high kick that earned Moreno that Oscar.
Friends, "The One With the Ballroom Dancing" In order to keep the superintendent, Mr. Traeger, from evicting Rachel and Monica, Joey sucks up to him by helping him learn how to dance for "The Super Ball," which culminates in a tender, beautifully choreographed dance sequence between the two on the roof of the building. Who knew Joey was so smooth?
CBMTrailers/YouTube
Mary Poppins When you think "dancing on the roof," it's almost impossible not to think about the chimney sweeps tap dancing and high kicking around the roofs of London. Thanks to the repetitive lyrics, everyone can learn to do this dance (once you figure out what Dick Van Dyke is saying through that terrible accent), and everyone did when they were little, stomping and twirling their way around the living room along with all of the chimney sweeps. And if you were really adventurous, you probably threw in some couch-hopping as well.
Clerks IINo matter how foul-mouthed your characters are, there's always an opportunity to work in a romantic rooftop dancing scene, and so Kevin Smith managed to work on into Clerks II with Becky attempting to teach Dante how to dance to "ABC" by the Jackson 5. Unlike the rest of the films on this list, this one turns into an all-out, elaborate dance party, but it all started with Rosario Dawson shimmying around the roof.
High School Musical 3 Sometimes the rooftop dance sequence is important to the plot, sometimes it's a fun moment of celebration, and sometimes it's just there to look pretty, which is the case with Troy and Gabriella's number in High School Musical 3. Theoretically, it's part of Troy asking her to the prom, but mostly it's just in there because Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens hadn't sung a touching ballad to each other since the pervious movie. However, we do give director Kenny Ortega bonus points for managing to work in a second rom-com staple: dancing in the rain.
Victorious, Multiple Episodes What can we say? Tween movies and television shows love to feature people dancing on top of roofs. No show made more use of this trope than Victorious, where seemingly every performance took place on the school's roof, including a prom number featuring Victoria Justice and a pre-pop stardom Ariana Grande singing a song about having a crush on your best friend's older brother. Again, bonus points to Dan Schneider for managing to work a thunderstorm into this performance, which surprisingly doesn't concern the kid playing the electric guitar at all.
Moulin Rouge In a film that featured characters singing, dancing and falling in love all over Paris, it's no surprise that the biggest, most romantic moment occurred on a rooftop that was covered in flowers, fairy lights, and a giant windmill that was often utilized for dramatic moments. We are, of course, referring to the "Elephant Love Medley," which is less formally known as the moment that everyone fell head over heels in love with Ewan McGregor. Forget "Come What May," this is the dance sequence that teenage girls the world over dream about.
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Morgan Freeman will present West Side Story star Rita Moreno with the 50th Lifetime Achievement Award at the Screen Actors Guild prizegiving on Saturday (18Jan14). Moreno will accept her latest accolade for her career and humanitarian accomplishments.
Past recipients of the award include Dick Van Dyke, Mary Tyler Moore, Ernest Borgnine, Betty White, James Earl Jones, Charles Durning, Julie Andrews, Robert Redford, Elizabeth Taylor and Clint Eastwood.
Freeman and Moreno are old friends, who first worked together on variety show The Electric Company in the early 1970s.

Monsters Inc. and Monsters University stars Billy Crystal and John Goodman will be among the celebrity honourees at the Disney Legends Awards in California next month (Aug13). The actors will be celebrated at the D23 Expo at the Anaheim Convention Center, where tragic Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and late TV icon Dick Clark will also be feted posthumously.
A statement from company chairman Bob Iger reads, "The Disney Legend Award is our highest and most coveted honour. It’s reserved for the extraordinary visionaries and artists behind the Disney magic, the men and women who push the limits of innovation and creativity to ensure Disney remains truly special."
Each star will receive a large sculpture to mark the occasion on 10 August (13), while Crystal and Goodman will leave their mark in cement during a special handprint ceremony.
Previous honourees have included Tim Allen, Robin Williams and Mary Poppins stars Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke.

Emmy Award-nominated writer/producer George Burditt has died. Burditt passed away in Burbank, California on Tuesday (25Jun13), according to editors at Deadline.com. No further details about his death were available as WENN went to press.
Burditt penned several episodes of the hit U.S. sitcom Three's Company and served as its executive producer from 1981 until it ended in 1984.
He also wrote scenes for shows including All In The Family, The Jeffersons, The Ropers, and Three's A Crowd - the TV sequel to Three's Company.
Burditt was nominated for four Emmy Awards during the 1970s, two each for variety shows The Sonny And Cher Comedy Hour and Van Dyke And Company.

Barbara Walters' reported retirement at 83 doesn't just mark the end of an illustrious, wildly successful career that spans 52 years. It marks the end of a dying breed: The larger-than-life woman TV journalist.
It's without an ounce of sentimentality or nostalgia that I say, no one will ever be able to replace Walters — because Walters' position no longer exists.
RELATED: Barbara Walters To Retire?
Most famous for her incredible interviewing skills, Walters is often named on the list of the industry's best female journalists of all time, a list that sadly doesn't usually inch past 20 names. (The Atlantic's recent list makes it to 22 while top journalism school New York University stops short at 21, but both include Walters.) But her impact goes beyond the practice of TV journalism, in which she excelled by becoming the first ever female national nightly news co-anchor, followed by her newsworthy interview series The Barbara Walters Specials. Walters covered all angles of our culture, leading her to become a pop culture icon in addition to her success as a newswoman, even landing a spot on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time — a list that included Dick Van Dyke, Lassie, and Miss Piggy. In a way, Walters became the most famous face of women in journalism throughout her career. Now that she's stepping down, it's hard to imagine anyone, even the likes of Katie Couric or Christiane Amanpour, taking up her mantle.
Couric and Amanpour are important examples because they both represent different segments of Walters' legacy. Couric is forging the path as the "new Walters," coming up through the Today Show machine, being outsed as a nightly national news anchor (Walters was booted when viewers failed to accept her as a female nightly news anchor), and starting up her own series that makes headlines for its interviews. But Couric's career slides a little away from Walters' monumental example, with her daytime talk show Katie angling more towards Oprah than a Barbara Walters Special with episodes titled "Tina Fey &amp; Paul Rudd’s College Confessions" and "How to De-Stress Your Life with Goldie Hawn and Deepak Chopra."
Amanpour, on the other hand, is all business. Known primarily for her reporting, Amanpour is more of an investigative journalist than Walters, but it's her nightly news interview series Amanpour (in addition to her position as CNN's chief international reporter) that could put her at an angle to take up mantle of Walters' long list of landmark interviews, including Fidel Castro, Indira Gandhi, and Hugo Chavez.
The issue, however, is that there is no singular woman in TV journalism who is primed and ready to take up Walters' post, effortlessly balancing the seriousness of hard-hitting journalism and the pop culture appeal of a host on The View. And there never will be. Amanpour, Rachel Maddow, and MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell may be some of the leading women in TV journalism, but they're not Walters, and it's not entirely clear that they even want to be.
RELATED: Why Barbara Walters Thinks These People Are So Fascinating
Part of that comes from the way in which online journalism is segmenting TV reporting. Because of the rise of online journalism and the ability to access it through mobile devices, TV news is slowly declining. A recent study from the Pew Research Center for People and the Press reports that the number of people under 30 who get their news from television has decreased from 49 percent in 2006 to 34 percent in 2012. Meanwhile the number of people who get their news online, through social media (which includes through journalists' own Twitter feeds) has increased from nine percent to 19, and it's growing.
At the same time, few serious women journalists on TV could even qualify for a gig like Walters' post on the view. It was about a year ago that Anne Curry was pushed out of the Today Show, a spot she'd more than earned, because her style was too austere and weighty, where the show was seeking light-heartedness and fluff. Now, the morning program is reportedly seeking Anderson Cooper as a potential savior — not because of his extensive experience as a reporter, but rather his ability to cuddle Grumpy Cat, field Kathy Griffin's sexual advances on live TV, and become a giggling mess at the mention of a Gerard Depardieu bathroom pun. At this rate, it seems more likely that we'll see Miss Grumpy Cat herself or Kid President take over Walters' yearly "10 Most Fascinating People" program, than a serious personality like Maddow or Amanpour.
RELATED: Barbara Walters Has the Chicken Pox - Get Well Soon!
But this lack of a Walters' successor isn't necessarily something to mourn — Barbara, herself, will be missed, but her position won't be, necessarily. While women journalists still have a long way to go to match the numbers and fame of their male counterparts, her placement as a sort of catch-all persona for the plight of the woman reporter has done all it can. It proved that a journalist at the top of their field doesn't have to be a man; it proved that an interview with a political leader can be just an influential as one with a pop icon; it proved that a woman could become wildly famous for more than her beauty or her charm, but for the brain inside her head.
And as we move further and further into an age of famed Internet-based journalists and more specialized TV journalists like Amanpour — who has a lock on international news — and Maddow, who built her career on her outspokenness and honesty rather than her universal appeal, the echo of Walters' influence is everpresent. And in a way that's the highest compliment she could be paid: she's infinitely influential and completely irreplaceable.
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[Photo Credits: Donna Svennevik/ABC; Peter Kramer/AP Photo]
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You can't go home again. It's a maxim whose institution in our culture has spanned from Thomas Wolfe's eponymous novel to that first season episode of Battlestar Galactica, but is it a tried and true phrase to live by or a tired cliché rung up by the real estate industry? In the realm of television, many a star has attempted to revitalize past glory on the old stomping grounds, return to the network that launched his or her career in the first place. James Gandolfini, for instance, is returning to HBO (the old home of his historical series The Sopranos) with a new drama pilot titled Criminal Justice.
The Hollywood Reporter reveals that Gandolfini will headline the project, an adaptation of a BBC series that aired in 2008. The story follows the trial of a Pakistani-American murder suspect (Rizwan Ahmed) from inception to conclusion, with Gandolfini playing his second-rate defense attorney Jack Stone. Screenwriter Steven Zaillian (Schindler's List, Gangs of New York, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) will direct and co-write the pilot with The Wire writer Richard Price.
Although it's not unheard of for a star to find success with a second series on the network responsible for his or her renown, there are definitely motivations to branch out to other venues. Generally speaking, television actors looking for work following a hit series opt to showcase their versatility, rather than promote the idea that they can't do anything we haven't seen from them so far. Famously, the stars of Seinfeld have endured difficulty illustrating what they can do beyond the confines of what NBC's hit sitcom displayed. Both Michael Richards and Julia Louis-Dreyfus sought post-Seinfeld work on NBC, to little success: Richards' detective series The Michael Richards Show only ran for eight episodes in the year 2000, while Louis-Dreyfus' sitcom Watching Ellie only made it to 16 before ratings-provoked cancellation. It should be noted that Louis-Dreyfus has found much greater success on other networks; her CBS sitcom The New Adventures of Old Christine lasted five seasons, in addition to earning the actress an Emmy — a victory that her new HBO comedy Veep might well match.
Coming off of another NBC powerhouse, Friends, actor Matthew Perry has sought work on the network twice since putting Chandler Bing to rest. In 2006, he starred in the Aaron Sorkin drama Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, which earned critical acclaim but only ran for one season. His new sitcom Go On premiered on the network this season, and has been a contributing factor in NBC's number one ratings status.
A greater certainty in star-network reunions existed in the past — at least on CBS. Responsible for hits like The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, and The Bob Newhart Show, CBS granted these series' featured actors Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Denver, and Bob Newhart followup shows The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Gilligan's Island, and Newhart — each of which were monumental success stories.
But with today's "less forgiving" television audiences, always looking for reasons to reject an actor's efforts to explore the new, the adherence to a network is riskier. The pattern suggested above is that when you see a star return to his or her network, you want to see that star doing the thing that instituted the fame. On The Michael Richards Show and Studio 60, the actors in question were too far gone from their Seinfeld and Friends characters. But Go On and the sitcoms of CBS yore reproduced the things we loved about Perry, Moore, Denver, and Newhart. The same can be said for Tony Danza, whose success on ABC's Taxi was transmitted to the network's later sitcom Who's the Boss?. If we're tuning into the same place to watch the same people, we want to see the same thing.
So how will Gandolfini fare on Criminal Justice? Is a jailhouse lawyer close enough to a mafioso to keep audiences engaged in the actor, or will people miss Tony Soprano an opt away from the new series? If viewers are willing to accept Gandolfini as anything other than Tony in the first place, the actor might have a hit on his hands. More than any pattern of which we might take note is the issue of quality. If Criminal Justice is well-written and accessible, then it could well be a hit. With the creative team of Zaillian and Price, and an actor like Gandolfini, quality is indeed promised. Now if only they could find a less generic title...
[Photo Credit: HBO]
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In This Means War – a stylish action/rom-com hybrid from director McG – Tom Hardy (The Dark Knight Rises) and Chris Pine (Star Trek) star as CIA operatives whose close friendship is strained by the fires of romantic rivalry. Best pals FDR (Pine) and Tuck (Hardy) are equally accomplished at the spy game but their fortunes diverge dramatically in the dating realm: FDR (so nicknamed for his obvious resemblance to our 32nd president) is a smooth-talking player with an endless string of conquests while Tuck is a straight-laced introvert whose love life has stalled since his divorce. Enter Lauren (Reese Witherspoon) a pretty plucky consumer-products evaluator who piques both their interests in separate unrelated encounters. Tuck meets her via an online-dating site FDR at a video-rental store. (That Lauren is tech-savvy enough to date online but still rents movies in video stores is either a testament to her fascinating mix of contradictions or more likely an example of lazy screenwriting.)
When Tuck and FDR realize they’re pursuing the same girl it sparks their respective competitive natures and they decide to make a friendly game of it. But what begins as a good-natured rivalry swiftly devolves into romantic bloodsport with both men using the vast array of espionage tools at their disposal – from digital surveillance to poison darts – to gain an edge in the battle for Lauren’s affections. If her constitutional rights happen to be violated repeatedly in the process then so be it.
Lauren for her part remains oblivious to the clandestine machinations of her dueling suitors and happily basks in the sudden attention from two gorgeous men. Herein we find the Reese Witherspoon Dilemma: While certainly desirable Lauren is far from the irresistible Helen of Troy type that would inspire the likes of Tuck and FDR to risk their friendship their careers and potential incarceration for. At several points in This Means War I found myself wondering if there were no other peppy blondes in Los Angeles (where the film is primarily set) for these men to pursue. Then again this is a film that wishes us to believe that Tom Hardy would have trouble finding a date so perhaps plausibility is not its strong point.
When Lauren needs advice she looks to her boozy foul-mouthed best friend Trish (Chelsea Handler). Essentially an extension of Handler’s talk-show persona – an acquired taste if there ever was one – Trish’s dialogue consists almost exclusively of filthy one-liners delivered in rapid-fire succession. Handler does have some choice lines – indeed they’re practically the centerpiece of This Means War’s ad campaign – but the film derives the bulk of its humor from the outrageous lengths Tuck and FDR go to sabotage each others’ efforts a raucous game of spy-versus-spy that carries the film long after Handler’s shtick has grown stale.
Business occasionally intrudes upon matters in the guise of Heinrich (Til Schweiger) a Teutonic arms dealer bent on revenge for the death of his brother. The subplot is largely an afterthought existing primarily as a means to provide third-act fireworks – and to allow McGenius an outlet for his ADD-inspired aesthetic proclivities. The film’s action scenes are edited in such a manic quick-cut fashion that they become almost laughably incoherent. In fairness to McG he does stage a rather marvelous sequence in the middle of the film in which Tuck and FDR surreptitiously skulk about Lauren's apartment unaware of each other's presence carefully avoiding detection by Lauren who grooves absentmindedly to Montel Jordan's "This Is How We Do It." The whole scene unfolds in one continuous take – or is at least craftily constructed to appear as such – captured by one very agile steadicam operator.
Whatever his flaws as a director McG is at least smart enough to know how much a witty script and appealing leads can compensate for a film’s structural and logical deficiencies. He proved as much with Charlie’s Angels a film that enjoys a permanent spot on many a critic’s Guilty Pleasures list and does so again with This Means War. The film coasts on the chemistry of its three co-stars and only runs into trouble when the time comes to resolve its romantic competition which by the end has driven its male protagonists to engage in all manner of underhanded and duplicitous activities. This Means War being a commercial film – and likely an expensive one at that – Witherspoon's heroine is mandated to make a choice and McG all but sidesteps the whole thorny matter of Tuck and FDR’s unwavering dishonesty not to mention their craven disregard for her privacy. (They regularly eavesdrop on her activities.) For all their obvious charms the truth is that neither deserves Lauren – or anything other than a lengthy jail sentence for that matter.
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